


In every universe I will love you.

by ashyjade136



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: 5x14 compliant mostly, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-04-13 15:14:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14115114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashyjade136/pseuds/ashyjade136
Summary: Daisy thought that she was finally rid of Grant Ward. Turns out, she's glad she isn't.Or: the one where Fitz has Daisy tied down and Ward appears as an anomaly and saves her. AKA how 5x14 should have gone/how it went in my head. Pretty much canon-compliant until that point.





	In every universe I will love you.

The restraints around her wrists and legs dug painfully into her skin, making her wince every time she so much as took a breath. She felt a tear slip out of her eye and catch in the crook of her nose. 

 

“Try and make yourself as comfortable as possible,” Fitz said, picking up a scalpel. Daisy’s heart jumped in her chest, fear making her feel nauseous. She was so confused - was this Fitz? Her Fitz? Or another anomaly? Was it the Fitz that had tortured her in the framework, who had no remorse or empathy? 

 

“I’m going to help you. My work has always helped people,” he sat down behind her. “Which is precisely what I’m doing now. By restoring your powers.” 

 

Daisy’s eyes widened. “What?” She began struggling desperately to be free. “No! No! Please Fitz, please,” she begged. 

 

“Shh,” he quieted her, placing a gloved hand on her forehead, where the vice that was holding her still dug into her scalp. She squeezed her eyes closed, pleas falling from her lips as she felt the scalpel press against her skin. She screamed when it dug in and felt blood running down her neck. She was sure that that was it - her powers would come back and the world would end at her hand. But then, suddenly, a voice she thought she’d never hear again spoke up. 

 

“Get away from her, Fitz.” 

 

Her eyes snapped open. And there he stood in the doorway, righteous and handsome and angry in her defence. Familiar.

 

Her mouth fell open and Fitz stood up abruptly, rubbing his eyes like maybe Grant Ward was just another hallucination. But he’d never looked more real. 

 

“No…no you’re dead,” Fitz stammered, wielding the scalpel like he ever had a chance against the specialist. 

 

Ward had him down in seconds. He smashed Fitz’s head against the wall, just hard enough to knock him out cold, before picking up the scalpel and approaching her. For one heart-wrenching moment, she thought maybe he’d pick up right where Fitz left off, cutting into her, possibly paralysing her, possibly _ending the freaking world_. But instead he crouched before her and set to cutting away the restraints. 

 

“What…? How are you…” She couldn’t seem to form full sentences and her vision was a little blurry - from being knocked unconscious, from the small amount of drugs Fitz had given her or from being cut into, she wasn’t sure. Or maybe it was just because she had thought with absolute certainty that she’d never see Ward again. 

 

He cut through the last of her bindings and quickly moved to pick her up, hooking an arm under her legs and another around her back and bringing her to his chest. She wrapped her arms around his neck, too out of it to protest. Fitz began to slowly stir and Ward quickly strode out of the room, Daisy in tow. 

 

“You’re not real,” she breathed as he navigated his way through the halls, and then up a few levels. “You’re an anomaly, from the fear-scape….” 

 

He didn’t disagree. 

 

“Are you Fitz’s fear? Simmons’?” 

 

He glanced down at her, coffee-coloured eyes so serious. Always so serious. 

 

“I’m yours.” 

 

Her eyebrows pulled down. “No. No, I’m not afraid of you. I never was.” She wasn’t sure if that was a lie or not. Her head lolled against his shoulder, her vision swimming momentarily and she winced in pain at the wound on her neck. 

 

He slowed to a stop and lowered her to the ground, gently propping her up against the wall and crouching in front of her. He tore a strip of material from her shirt and brushed her hair to the side, his fingers skimming her bare skin. His jaw clenched as he looked at the wound on her neck, before he pushed the material against it to try and stop the bleeding. 

 

“Why are you doing this?” She asked breathlessly. “It doesn’t make any sense - you’re not real. Why would you be helping me?” 

 

Their eyes clashed together like two swords in battle. It’d always been like that with them. Intense, almost painfully so. 

 

“Maybe,” he gulped and that was the first time she saw doubt on this reincarnation’s face. “Maybe there’s no version of Grant Ward that doesn’t love you.” 

 

And that somehow managed to hurt more than any scalpel ever could. 

 

“But I don’t-…I’m not afraid of you. I know you would never-..That _he_ would never hurt me,” she managed to choke out. If she hadn’t known it before, the Framework had confirmed it. Ward was incapable of hurting her (physically, anyway, never mind breaking her heart and shredding it to pieces). And, it seemed, of letting someone else hurt her too. 

 

He smiled, a small, self-deprecating and slightly miserable smile. “You’re not scared I’d hurt you. That’s not what the fear is.” 

 

“Then what is it?” She almost didn’t want to know. _Almost_. 

 

“Maybe….maybe you’re afraid I’m not the monster you all painted me to be. Maybe you’re afraid that…If you had have just forgiven me all those years ago, just a little bit, then I could’ve become the man I was in the Framework, instead of the thing that I died as.” 

 

She didn’t realise she was crying until he brushed his knuckles against her cheek lightly. “No,” her voice was little more than a whisper. “No, your actions were your own. You chose to be that way.” 

 

“Yeah,” he agreed, equally as quiet. “But what if you could have changed that? How many people would still be alive, Daisy? If you had have just forgiven me.” 

 

And that reminded her that this wasn’t really Ward - not Ward who had protected her at risk of his own life, nor Ward who had betrayed her and hurt her friends, not Hive-with-Ward’s-face whom she had been addicted to, nor Ward whom she had loved in another, fake life. Because those Ward’s would never blame her for his actions. She didn’t know much these days, but she knew that with a kind of certainty that made her light-headed. Ward had never blamed her, not for a moment. 

 

“You’re not him,” her voice was stronger this time, steadier. 

 

“No,” he agreed. “I’m not.” He pulled out the scalpel from his back pocket and she sucked in a sharp breath. But again, he didn’t make a move to hurt her. 

 

Instead, he handed it to her and cupped her cheek. She looked down at the weapon in her hand and then back up at him. “I-…” She shook her head. “I can’t.” 

 

His thumb stroked the skin of her cheek and in a moment of weakness, she leant into his touch, closing her eyes and savouring the feel of his skin against hers. She didn’t realise how much she craved it until she got a small taste of it. And he felt so real, so completely _him_. It was hard to remember that, just like in the Framework, he wasn’t real. This wasn’t the person he had been. He’d been a monster, a killer. Someone she couldn’t trust or love like she’d wanted so badly to. 

 

“It’s ok,” he said. “Skye, look at me.” She hadn’t been called that in a long time and it _stung_. She hesitantly opened her eyes, her eyelashes sticking together a little because of her tears. He nodded his head and guided her hand so the scalpel pushed against his chest. “It’s ok.” 

 

A sob escaped her and she leaned forward, her free hand gripping his shirt. She pressed her lips against his and felt something stir inside of her, something that she thought had been extinguished from her long ago, amongst the never-ending pain and loss. Now, with her lips against his, it sparked back to life. And, as she pushed the scalpel into his chest, his blood coating her hand, she felt the spark fade away again, just as he slowly disappeared into thin air before her, disintegrating in her grasp. When she opened her eyes again, he was gone. 

 

The blood on her hand, however, did not disappear. A small remnant of him, a small symbol of the guilt she would always carry that maybe, just maybe, she could have saved him. But she hadn’t. That was a fantasy, a Framework, a life she could never have.

 

This was reality. 

 

She heard Fitz shout her name and saw him striding down the hallway toward her. She tightened her grip on the scalpel and stood to fight.


End file.
